9 Answers

In my mind, the main pro would be the same as the main con – you can negotiate your own rate for every job you do. This of course means that the company you’re selling to can negotiate the rate for every job you do too.

Pros of being employed:
Getting yourself employed helps you to be more organized, more deadline oriented and it will brush up your skill. You will make new friends at work. Moreover, you would get weekend offs, holidays etc.

Pros of freelancing:
You can work at your own pace, earn money at your own pace (work more, get more money)

Freelancing is great if you’re a self driven kind of person, someone who really thrives on seeing their work and effort translate into results, someone who is willing to put in the time and effort in running a business and learning how to best manage it.

Some flaws in freelancing include you having to manage your own taxes and payroll deductions as well as your health care, no job stability, and it’s sometimes harder to get financing or a loan when you can’t show a paystub from your company (they usually require you to show proof of income, which means you need to HAVE that proof of income, which of course means you need to have income to begin with).

Since you are just getting started I would go for the organized job. Not only will you get health insurance and some real working experience, but it will also show you a thing or two about professional interaction, particularly if you work in a start up environment.

Usually freelancers are people with some kind of experience/expertise in their field.

I would suggest you to start in a company. Maybe in one partnership organization (like consulting/advisory/legal/audit firms) where you are actually employed but being an associate in a company which is structured in that way, it sounds and feels a bit different.

I suggest finding other freelancers to work with if you don’t have a strong enough hermit gene. I’ve been working for myself since 2005 on and off and only now is the solitude starting to hurt. Looking back, I would enjoy it all more and be better at what i do if I had been working with others all this time.